Critiques needed: Toughness variant

[Henry]

Hi all! It's my first visit to the house rules forum in a long time, so I apologize if this or something similar has been discussed before.

My my games, I have been debating the idea of giving toughness an additional ability. In addition to adding 3 hit points, I also want to add an ability similar to a popular house rule that a PC doesn't die at -10 hit points, but rather at -CON hit points. What do you think of:

1) making it -CON hit points (e.g. a PC with 14 CON would die at -14 hit points)

2) making it -10 + (- CON ability bonus) (e.g. a PC with a 14 con would die at -12 instead of -10)

Opinions are greatly appreciated.

P.S. I should add that we have in the past used the -CON rule, but I really don't want to give this to everyone for free. SO, I thought it might be appropriate to add to toughness, especially since it is so horribly underutilized in my games.

 

[las]

Yes this topick as ben discoes many time before here and on the wizards boards.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I do something similar with toughness in my games--each time you take toughness, you get +3 hp (as usual) but you also can go three more hit points into negatives without dying. Consequently a character who took toughness once doesn't die until -13. A character who took toughness twice dies at -16, etc.

I think it's a good variant because it doesn't make toughness an uber feat (get 3+1 hp/level, etc--who wouldn't want 20 hp) but it makes characters with toughness considerably less likely to die. (Hey, they really are tougher). None of the characters in my game have taken it though (an orc barbarian was thinking about it as his 3rd level feat but he died at second level when his rage ran out (ironically, the feat would have saved his life)).

 

[Henry]

E-B, thanks for the response! I actually like that variant better than mine.

 

[N Hammer]

The '- Con' to die is a standard rule I use in my game for all things.

If I were to change Toughness at all...I'd add a bonus to Fort. saves to go along with the HP bonus.

 

[The Iron Mark]

What about all the other Toughness feats in MotW? There are ones that give +6, +9, and +12 HP per time you take them.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I haven't had anyone ask about them in my campaign yet. I don't think I'd let characters extend their lives down to -28 by taking Toughness, Dwarf's Toughness, and Giant's Toughness. The other feats seem far more worthwhile.

What about all the other Toughness feats in MotW? There are ones that give +6, +9, and +12 HP per time you take them.

 

[Archibald Theocliste]

Well, letting your players die at their CON score instead of -10 is a nice idea if you use it for all your players, not only those who have the feat.

This house rule allows you to use (at least) bees which won't die at -10 but just after the first crush of a hammer

But if you limit it to Toughness, you'll have a wizard with 8 CON who will die at -10 unless he takes toughness wich will let him die at -8 (or -9 if you use your second rule)... So I suppose you already intended to never let the feat reduce this number below -10, and IMHO you are missing an interesting (or funny , well maybe not for the wizard... ) possibility here.
On the other hand letting your players die at -10 -toughness or -CON -toughness seems a good concept and makes this feat worthwile, or at least it never showed any abuse in our campaign.

What about all the other Toughness feats in MotW? There are ones that give +6, +9, and +12 HP per time you take them.

Has someone noticed that these feats seem like a waste of space? I don't want to rant here but look at them :
Dwarven Toughness, prereq. BFOR save 5+, add 6hp
Giant Toughness, prereq. BFOR save 8+, add 9hp
Dragon Toughness, prereq. BFOR save 11+, add 11hp
Don't you think it would be easier to use :
Improved Toughness, prereq. BFOR save 5+, add BFOR save score +1 hp?
(I'm not here to criticize their work but just to point the fact that with the wild increase of feats available to players, it is not necessary to create so many feats so close from each other, but I don't want to hijack, this is the subject of another thread...)

 

[Malin Genie]

In my game the 10% stabilisation chance involves rolling a 19 or 20 on a d20 (rather than rolling percentile dice.) Toughness gives +3 hp and +3 to the stabilisation roll (making it a 25% chance to stabilise.)

 

[KnowTheToe]

IMO this is a great option, it makes the feat actually worth something. I like the con bonus option best. This would make this feat worthwile for some PCs. I would make it a minimum bonus of an additional -1 HP for PCs with 10 Consititution.

I am adding this to my house rules